The full text of the mayor of London Boris Johnson's speech on the future of the Conservatives.
It’s wonderful to be here in Manchester, one of the few great British cities I have yet to insult and I intend to keep a clean sheet today, my friends because if we can win in the capital then we can win in Manchester and any inner city in Britain and we can change the political map of this country as we changed the map of London. Though I have to say I don’t approve of every map change I see.
The other day I got back from a trip to NY and I found that some bright spark had deleted the river Thames from Harry Beck’s 1933 map of the Underground and there was a huge hoo-ha underway and I immediately issued a mayoral directive and you will be relieved and pleased to know that from Christmas - at no extra cost to the taxpayer – the river will be back where it belongs, flowing through the heart of the city and the only thing I regret is that the Evening Standard uncharacteristically missed the obvious headline River Crisis – mayor steps in.
Sometimes voters ask me nervously whether I enjoy being mayor and the answer is that hard work is fantastically enjoyable if you are lucky enough, as I am, to have a first rate team at City Hall, many of whom are now becoming famous in their own right and often for the right reasons and if you are able to do things you believe in.
So I hope I will be forgiven if I briefly recapitulate and say how proud I am that we have saved millions by scrapping some of the barmiest projects in British politics, not least the communist era freesheet called the Londoner.
We have banned booze on public transport.
We have planted the first of thousands of new street trees.
We have turfed the first bendy buses off the streets.
We have given free travel to veterans, 24 hour free travel to older people.
We have just held the biggest mass cycle event in history.
AND yet we have frozen our share of the council tax last year and I can tell you today that we are going to freeze it again next year as well.
And that is what Conservative government is all about.
I am proud that we are fulfilling our number one pledge to make public space safer, to make transport safer.
There are now more uniformed crime fighters on the buses than at any time in the last 30 years and that is not wholly unconnected to the fact, I believe that bus crime is down 18 per cent.
And though there is never any case for complacency, I am relieved that youth violence is down 13 per cent and fatal teenage stabbings are down by 50 per cent.
And I pay tribute to the Metropolitan Police and Sir Paul Stephenson. If you want an example of the kind of commonsense policing that he is bringing to the force it was his instant decision to insist that where possible officers will patrol singly rather than in pairs as a result of which elementary piece of arithmetic there will be an extra half a million patrols this year, getting police out there on the street where people can see them.
And that is my idea of a new administration in action.
And it is all the more remarkable that crime is coming down overall, when there is less money in people’s pockets and people feel less secure in their jobs.
Because the tragedy of this Labour government is that they are set to scuttle from office with unemployment higher than when they came in with colossal public debt like Peckham motorist Harriet Harman fleeing the scene of the crime.
And once again it is left to us to sweep up the crushed indicator lights of the classic Labour car crash to sort out the usual disastrous legacy - the damnosa hereditas as we say in Walford – or we shall shortly say in Walford.
That means taking some tough decisions about public spending. And so let me tell you the kind of cuts we have made that I believe are essential and programmatic for an incoming Conservative government.
We have lost 180 jobs in City Hall, and 30 per cent of the headcount of the LDA.
London Underground has already lost 1000 backroom staff, and we are cutting £220m in consultants. £130m in the cost of accommodation.
And we are overall making savings of £5bn in Transport for London’s budget.
And when you are making savings at that kind of rate, you have to do it frankly with compassion, and with humanity.
And there has been something bizarre about the lip-smacking savagery of the Lib Dems, with Vince Cable morphing into a mad axeman a transformation as incongruous as the killer rabbit in Monty Python.
But make those savings we must because otherwise we risk mistakes that could undermine the foundations of the economy, parch the seedbeds of growth, attack the very things that allow liberal capitalism to flourish in this country.
And for me as mayor there are three key areas where we need to apply simple Conservative principles.
And they are getting young people into jobs, the theme of our conversations today
making sure that we have the infrastructure we need to remain competitive.
And defending the buoyant spirit of innovation and enterprise that has ensured London’s historic economic success.
I make no apology for this. Last week in Brighton we heard the prime minister’s weird apostasy when he seemed to attack the free market ideology he has spent the last ten years slavishly adoring And he declared that the financial services sector was morally bankrupt.
Well, I don’t agree and I will oppose high marginal rates of taxation because they failed in the dismal 1970s, because they yield tiny sums in revenue and only serve to drive away talent and frankly I think it DOES matter that the city of London should remain competitive.
Before you get carried away, I know how unpopular these bankers are, and I know how far out on a limb I now seem to be in sticking up for these pariahs.
But never forget all you bankerbashers that the leper colony of the city of London produces 9 per cent of UK GDP, 13 per cent of value-added and taxes that pay for roads and schools and hospitals and that is why I am willing to take the fight to our friends and partners in Brussels against ill-thought out regulation, because they may be our friends and partners, not matter what flashing green-eyed President they may install, but they are not above poking the City in the eye in the misguided belief that it will give them some competitive advantage and I fear they will persist in this delusion which is why I think we should vote on the matter
And the reason I defend the capitalist system is that when times are tight and public finances are facing a brutal squeeze these companies are not so much the problem as a vital part of the solution and not just in the jobs they create and the taxes they yield.
We in City Hall have been working flat out to deal with the human cost of the recession we have started 12,000 affordable homes, far more than many thought possible far more than my predecessor.
We have launched measures to boost apprenticeships to help graduates find jobs, to cut the cost of transport for those on benefits and in search of work. But there is so much more we can do for young people if we rely not only on the taxpayer and but if we also mobilise the energy of private capital. {we are this month opening the first mayoral academy devoted to getting 16-year-olds into jobs}
And when I look around London I see firms and individuals already giving their time and their cash to academies and to boxing clubs and mentoring schemes.
I want to encourage that. I will not pretend that every banker has had a Scrooge-like conversion to the spirit of Christmas giving.
And I invite any bankers out there to palliate their guilt about being in possession of a taxpayer-funded bonus by giving it to the Mayor’s Fund.
My point is that you cannot sort out the deep-seated problems of unemployed young people without the help of the firms that could provide work for young people and it is only if we have sensible tax rates and light regulation and reasonable employment law that business will be able to pay the taxes for the things we need to do.
And if you want one decisive example of the terminal lunacy that afflicts this government I give you the case the other day when a pair of female police officers discovered they were not allowed to babysit for each other unless they both secured OFSTED credentials in baby-sitting.
Who is sitting there in OFSTED handing out degrees in baby-sitting to female police officers?
I don’t know – but I know that whoever it is no doubt draws a handsome salary and benefits and bomb-proof public sector pension and that is where the axe should fall.
Get rid of the nonsense, but don’t chop the investments essential to the UK economy.
Cut the baby-sitting monitors, but don’t cut Crossrail.
Cut the baby-sitting monitor human resources department, but don’t cut the tube upgrades
Cut the baby-sitting monitor equal opportunities action day, but don’t cut the great projects and investments that will deliver jobs and growth now and make London more attractive for generations to come.
That’s why the GLA is today launching an air quality strategy finally taking big decisions that were ducked by Labour.
It is a disgrace that after 12 years of dither London has among the worst air quality in Europe and with the population growing fast, as London mothers produce record phenomenally numbers of babies.
we must insist on an air-conditioned tube and cleaner, greener buses, and planting thousands of trees and a beautiful new bike hire scheme, the regeneration of East London that will come with the Olympic games. Not just because they will boost the quality of life but by making it easier and more pleasant to live in and move around in, these improvements will boost growth.
And I mean no disrespect to Manchester, beautiful city, but if you want to stimulate the Mancunian economy and if you want to stimulate Leeds and Newcastle then you invest in London my friend, because London is the motor not just of the South east, not just of England, not just of Britain but of the whole of the UK economy.
And if we can keep that economy whirring then London will lead the UK out of recession just as it did in the 1930s.
And if we can cut cost in City Hall, George then you can cut cost in Whitehall as you promise to do.
And if we can cut crime in London, then David Cameron can make streets safer across the UK.
And if we can replace Labour’s political gaseous emissions with real action to improve London’s air not least a clean green hop on hop off new generation routemaster bus of the kind that was so wrongly taken away.
Then the Conservatives can harness new technology to deliver cut in pollution that people want to see.
The changes that people want to see and if we can defeat a stale clapped-out miserablist socialist regime in City Hall and install a new regime so frugal that we have still not exhausted the old mayor’s stocks of chateauneuf du pape.
Then you David can defeat this unelected, unrepentant, unbelievable embarrassment of a government.
It is time for a new and energetic Conservative administration to sort out this country’s finances.
It is time to give the British people back their pride and their trust in this political institution, country and its leaders.
It’s time for change, folks.
And the Conservatives will give you your money’s worth - and they’ll give you change as well!
Dods Parliamentary Communications Ltd